This piece by Rabbi Kenigsberg was first published in Hanassi Highlights, Thursday 16 July 2026. Thanks to AI, you can also read it in Hebrew (click here).
Parshat Devarim retells many of the events recorded earlier
in the Torah, yet often with subtle differences. Those differences are not
accidental. They invite us to look more deeply and uncover a new dimension of
the story.
One striking example is the episode of the spies. In Parshat Shelach, the emphasis falls
squarely on the spies themselves and the disastrous report they bring back from
the Land of Israel. The narrative already hints that something has gone wrong.
Rashi explains that when God says "Shelach lecha" -- "Send for yourself" -- it is not a command but a concession.
Moshe Rabbeinu even changes Yehoshua’s name, praying that he be saved from the
counsel of the spies.
Yet when Moshe recounts the same events in Parshat Devarim,
the focus shifts. He recalls that the people approached him with the request to
send spies, and he concludes, "Vayitav be'einai hadavar" ("The matter seemed good in my eyes).
How can these two accounts be reconciled? Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky points to a
single word in Rashi that changes the entire perspective. Describing the
people's approach to Moshe, Rashi explains that they came be'irbuvya—in confusion and disorder. The young pushed past the old,
the old pushed past the tribal leaders. There was no calm discussion, only
urgency and panic.
The rebuke, Rav Kamenetsky explains, is not directed merely at the decision to send spies. Sending a reconnaissance mission before entering the Land could have been entirely reasonable. The problem was the atmosphere in which the request was made. Their panic revealed something deeper. They had lost perspective. They forgot where they stood, what God had already done for them, and what He had promised for the future. Their practical efforts no longer flowed from faith; they flowed from fear.
As we stand on the threshold of Tisha b'Av, we naturally
reflect on the great national failures that brought about the destruction of
the Beit HaMikdash. Yet the Torah reminds us that, long before the tragedy itself, there was a subtler failure: a
nation that momentarily lost confidence in the path God had set before it. The
spies were not the beginning of the story. They were the consequence of a
people who had already begun to see the future through the lens of fear rather
than faith.
Tisha b'Av calls upon us to mourn what was lost, and also
to remember the covenant that was never broken. Even in times of uncertainty,
the Jewish people continue to walk forward sustained not only by careful
planning but by the enduring confidence that the God who has guided our history
in the past continues to guide it still.
Shabbat Shalom!
